"smithson" poems
Moving amidst my Ramona chapter books,
I make out your movement, M, the moody turns
Of your mounts and valleys, the moniker of
Family names, you marked me like a maternal
Emblem of the generation’s matriarch,
You mingled amid reminiscences of former matrons
Maria Helena from the Midwest,
Who crossed the mountains in a wagon,
Madeleine, a migrant from Marseilles,
Who baked warm loaves in San Francisco,
And her own daughter, my Mimi,
Who muttered merde while she drank martinis.
In my own time, you materialized in
Marjorie, my nana, and Maria, my mom,
The women in which I knew you growing up,
Then Molly, who made dreams out of
Magic and Movies and Marie Antoinette,
You embellished my most favorite things.
In my monogram, you aimed my impulses
in your masts’ diametric directions
Towards competence, towards imagination.
In your middle ‘s mysterious compartment I make snug
With magazines and novels and mugs of hot milk.
You nuzzled me in moments of melancholy, then motivated me
To meander among your fundamental family,
The sumptuous L of melt and mélange,
The meticulous N of man or monk or money.
Even W, which matches your mien in mirror
It warped wicked witch while you
Milled maidens and damsels, so I imagined
The mutilation of those two majuscules formed
My image of womanhood. M, Molly Smithson materialized
From a meek mademoiselle into the mistress of mischief.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 10:09 AM UTC
Standing, soaked, out in a storm, gusts of wind whipping my hair around wildly
Unruly strands sway with the song of chaos, pulling at my scalp, snapping, lashing at my face
My existence is all reality as this whirlwind tempest frantically thrashes about my flesh
In the complex puzzles and foolish games, a simple madness lives, and therein lies my freedom
My tongue and lips sometimes flap boisterously from their spot on my face
And the noises risen up from my throat, and passed through my mouth are meaningless blubberings
Involuntarily, I grin, tasting the nonsense's unique sweetness, and I swallow
My laughter rings out, a vociferous and untameable sound; humor, the voice of a crazy woman
And I spin! Oh, I spin and spin and spin, savagely, in ellipses, ovals, and circle shapes
I've no shame, and this dance is all mine, so I maniacally fling my arms through the air
And as my body makes its revolutions, a fierce smile curves the shape of my lips, wrinkles the corners of my eyes
Inside my mind, wandering - wondering if there's any real difference between elated insanity and that which I crave...
Some people might use words such as eccentric, strange, whimsical, and peculiar for what they cannot understand
So very often I hear these such words being used from those who speak of me
But it is them whom I perceive as being rather off, so habitual and boring, living like routine enslaved, joyless zombies
So unfathomable to me, why most everyone seems to desire nothing beyond a passionless, hollow schedule to, every day, just repeat
Me... I'll race barefoot down a gravel path, through lightning, thunder, and rain, only to feel my hair being twisted and tangled up in the wind
I'll jabber absurdities, laugh like a loon, all while I spin contentedly around and around, until, stupidly dizzy, I crash and fall
Madness pays little mind, stands without worries or concerns, because it believes - it knows, most nothing matters
This is my freedom, freedom that cannot be shared, for what it is, is something that's only freeing for me...
~A. D. Smithson MARCH 2013
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 14, 2013 at 4:58 AM UTC
From smithson's crystaline jetty, I spy.
With my little eye, an isle of the dead.
Surrounded by the bland entourage of buoys
I stand heavy and still for an hour, but dry.
Wandering in my loneliness,
While I want to swim around the jetty of your eyes.
Aug 16, 2011
Aug 16, 2011 at 4:28 PM UTC
There was a house at the end of my street
No-one lived there for very long
During the war, an entire family wiped out
When an aeroplane dropped a bomb
The family living there at the time
Amounted to unlucky thirteen
Mother, father, baby Mary
And ten children in between
They were a lovely family
Liked by everyone
Janet Smithson who was a nurse
And her hard-working husband John
They were in the front room having tea
On that fateful day
When an aeroplane scored a direct hit
And God took them all away
The whole town was in mourning
For the Smithson family
Mother, father and eleven children
The youngest baby Mary who was three
What was left of the house was boarded up
Then the tenants would move in
Off would come the boards
The walls they were so thin
We'd hear their every movement
If they slammed a door, the walls would shake
Wild parties held by young teenagers
Would keep us all awake
A tenant would live there for a couple of months
Then they’d go on their way
We'd ask them why they were moving out
But none of them would say
This went on for many years
Tenants would come and go
I asked the landlord what was wrong
He said that he didn't know
One day I plucked up the courage
To question a tenant as they were about to leave
She said “I’m almost scared to tell you
I’ve never been one to believe
But there is something supernatural
Going on in the hall
When everything is quiet
We can hear screaming coming from the wall”
She said she'd looked on the internet
In the local branch library
And read up on the house's history
And the sad fate of the Smithson family
After years of squatters and standing empty
The house it was pulled down
But what happened to the Smithson’s
Is still remembered in my home town
Feb 22, 2017
Feb 22, 2017 at 9:05 AM UTC
"A great artist can make art by simply casting a glance" – Robert Smithson
Not by drawing a glance,
but casting.
Imagine the studio. What
Molten materials, what
Molds needed?
Who models, and will they
Recognize their eyes, or
Is it their object reified –
The signifier or the referent
Denoted in this indexical
Congealing.
Shy, illicit, bold, flirtations, imperial,
The variations and series of directed looks,
Is this the content, or is the captured casting
The direction - just the path of pointing:
A laser beam, redone in spider web, then
done again as differentials of the air?
And what of the early work, the
Imperfections, who filed down the seams?
And would cracks in the mold shift
The glance askew, revealing
A pliers, a heater, a
Reader’s thought?
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 5:05 PM UTC
The helicopter blades / The end of the shore // No color names // A Great Lover can make love / Simply by casting a glance? // If the prints are documentation of the work, why are the editions numbered? / If the work is in the print, why can’t the landscape be destroyed with the flying camera? // A cast of thousands, a glance askance, a glacial chance, / What if? What if? What if? // And a great pilot? // The end of art / Where the glance meets the plain.
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 5:06 PM UTC